April 9, 2003

WAR, BOMBS , terrorism, the Yankees' pitching staff, disease and pestilence in general ... but if you like your bad news with a fairly happy ending, just keep reading Cheap Eats even after I tell you that Bobby's Back Door Barbecue at the Alvarado Gardens in Richmond is no more. I don't know how or when this happened, because it happened when I wasn't looking, and I hadn't looked in on Bobby for over a year. Then Haywire sort of prerequested, as one of his nonburrito activities, an evening of sticky-fingered two-stepping, and when I called Bobby's to see whether live Cajun music was Thursdays or Sundays or both or what, I got the dreaded boo-dee-doot noise. So then, all atremble, hoping I'd dialed the wrong number, I called information.

"What city please?"

"Richmond?" I was having a hard time speaking. "Bobby's," I said, "Back Door," I said, "Barbecue."

Nothing.

I tried to get her to try "Bar-B-Que" and "BBQ" and so on, and refused to believe that it wouldn't matter, according to the operator, since there was no listing for Bobby's Back Door Anything.

She hung up on me. I got another operator to try Alvarado Gardens, and then (in case I was malremembering the name of the bar that fronted Bobby's) El Dorado Gardens, Avocado Gardens, Avalon Gardens, and Alphonso Gardens.

But, alas, it was to no avail, or avowal, or afoul.

And still, like a dead body, I had to see it with my own four eyes before it would really sink in.

Welcome to Richmond. City of Pride and Purpose.

There was the Alvarado Gardens, closed, with an application for a liquor license in the window, and there was Bobby's sign pointing to the back of the place. I turned the corner and went into the parking lot, because I wanted to pay my last respects, and there it was: back door wide open. Open for business! Same sweet smell and everything. What the –

They'd closed temporarily, according to a sign still on the door. But now they have reopened, only they're not Bobby's, technically; they're T's. T's Back Door Barbecue. So that's the happy ending. What sucks is that, what without the Alvarado, there's nowhere for us out-of-towners to sit down and eat it. To say nothing of jumping up to dance to live Cajun music, which was half the fun of going to Bobby's. But maybe the bar will reopen too, someday. I'll let you know as soon as I do, or vice versa.

Meanwhile, since I couldn't sit down to no barbecue, I moto-moseyed down San Pablo Avenue for something else to sink my teeth into. No shortage of burger joints and dog shops and other good-looking eating holes around there, especially after you get through El Cerrito and down into Albany, down around Solano Avenue.

There, on the east side of the street (if my internal compass serves me), across from a thoroughly modern strip mall and a Happy Donuts, I spotted a real, live, and rustic old log cabin called Sam's Log Cabin, the sign out front of which featured a drawing of an old West-style wagon and the sentence "Come and git it."

Had to figure they meant food, and I was not disappointed.

Great, great place, Sam's, with splotch-painted green and purplish-pink tables, a steep A-frame ceiling with cool lo-fi skylights cut into it, antique lanterns hanging crosswise, and, lengthwise, the most impressive collection of hand mixers I've ever seen hanging from the ceiling of any restaurant, log cabin or otherwise.

They also have a hell of a hot sauce collection, and a couple of antique potato chip tins, including New Era's "scientifically processed" potato chips. There's the atmosphere.

"Knock yourself out," the guy behind the cash register said, handing me a menu.

There's the service. Win-win, so far.

As for the food, the food was very good – just a wee bit more expensive than I'd've liked it to be. But that almost goes without saying, doesn't it? Nine-ninety-five for fish sticks. That's what I got. Could've had the blue plate special, which was, I think, a tuna melt, for a couple, two, three bucks less. But fish sticks sounded really good to me for some reason – maybe because they were homemade and made out of catfishes, which are probably my favorite kind of fish.

There were four plump, juicy strips of them, breaded three-quarters of the way around and served with a small bowl of pasta salad with good black olives, red onions, and capers. Plus a salad (or soup) of green leaf lettuce and tomatoes in a great poppy seed vinaigrette.

See? Maybe that's what we're paying for. Maybe the stuff's organic. (The eggs are.) Maybe they grow it all out back, in their pretty little garden.

Anyway: worth it.

Sam's Log Cabin. 945 San Pablo, Albany. (510) 558-0494. Tues.-Fri., 7 a.m.-2 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Takeout available. No alcohol. Credit cards not accepted. Wheelchair accessible.